magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

The haircut that's been in the pipeline for a month—since the beard came off at the start of spring, really—happened this morning. Any number of reasons why, but in short, today was the day. Then, in the mode of accomplishing the practical tasks of everyday life, laundry. I own plenty of t-shirts but, as it seems, not enough socks. Though it's almost time to make the switch to flip-flops as primary footwear.

After meeting with the previously mentioned time management counselor I had some design monkey work-work to do. Then realized I had not managed my time well enough to make it into Manhattan and take some photographs of the area around Union Square, which is where the threshold between the real world and the first island in my thesis project is located. I did not have the time because I was planning on attending a lecture entitled 'Noise, Signal and Word: How Writing Works' given by Tom McCarthy. As would be expected from his novels, the talk was steeped in reference and heavy on theory—language, literary, media, &c. In other words: well, yeah. He also played an early Kraftwerk video and scenes from Jean Cocteau's Orphée, the former as a sort of intermission (and to illustrate some points) and the latter as one of the more foundational inspirations for the talk itself.

All art is reference—listening and repeating—being central. Heading back to studio with the only other digital arts student who attended the lecture, discussing mainly this point, I said, "That's largely what my [proposed] thesis is about. Reference and cross-reference. The magic in the discovery of coincidence. Or the coincidence of discovery. But to step back from the active stage of cross-referencing, that's where I have trouble. After the midterm proposal presentations, the general advice to the Thesis Research class was: Do more research. Except Bean. This doesn't apply to anyone else, but Bean, you need to stop doing research."

That, of course, will not happen. But, making is a sort of research itself—the main lesson that RISD Architecture tried to teach me—albeit more of an applied research than a pure research. Not that concrete application is a bad thing, I'm casting no dispersions, or at least no more than are wont to be my inherent bias—my first love was, after all, math, one of the most purely abstract things that the human mind has created—but I acknowledge that bias and recognise the all sorts of difficulties that it engenders. My semi-regular attempts at daily endeavours—poems, photos, blog entries, &c.—are undertaken in the hope of developing a habit of applied practice, of making.

Which, aside from dinner, I didn't do any of tonight.